Horses are not used as guinea pigs here. My point is they are a help to us humans in medicine as well. But I honor your opinions.
We do love our horses of course and we don't want to hurt them. Injecting them a little amount of venom is not hurting them because they have their natural way of vaccination in their body.
Here is one of the explanations on how do people get the much needed antivenom:
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by http://www.reptilepark.com.au/venom_production.asp
A simplified explanation of how the snake antivenoms are produced, is that extremely small amounts of say, tiger snake venom are injected into huge Percheron horses on a regular basis over a long period of time. The amounts are so small that the horses are not affected except that produces antibodies to counteract the foreign substance in its system. After some 10-12 months of this immunological 'conditioning', a small proportion of each horse's blood is removed and the plasma is extracted. This plasma contains the antibodies which, when injected into a snake bite victim, will neutralize snake venom.
|